The Complete Guide to Godly Play

Jerome W. Berryman

Description

Godly Play® is an imaginative approach to working with children, an approach that supports, challenges, nourishes, and guides their spiritual quest.

Revised and updated, The Complete Guide to Godly Play, Volume 2 offers new concepts, new terminology, new illustrations, and a new structure that stem from more than 10 years of using Godly Play with children across the world. 30 to 40 percent of the text is new or revised, including a new lesson, revised Introduction, and a new full Appendix.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christian Education
• Philosophie et théologie
• Children
• Youth

Informations

• Publié par: Church Publishing Incorporated
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780819233608
• Langue: English

Extrait

Figure details
The page reads Volume 2, Revised and Expanded. Jerome W. Berryman; Cheryl V. Minor, Consulting Editor; Rosemary Beales, Consulting Editor. An imaginative method for nurturing the spiritual lives of children. Church Publishing.
© 2017 by Jerome W. Berryman
Consulting Editors: Cheryl V. Minor and Rosemary Beales
Illustrator: Steve Marchesi, pages 15, 28, 33, 36, 79, 91, 156
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Any scripture quotations used in this work are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Old Testament Section © 1952; New Testament Section, First Edition, © 1946; Second Edition, © 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA.
A record of this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8192-3359-2 (pbk.)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8192-3360-8 (ebook)
Contents
Introduction
Orientation Session
Lesson 1
Circle of the Church Year
Lesson 2
The Holy Bible
Lesson 3
The Holy Bible Enrichment Lesson: The Books of the Bible
Lesson 4
The Holy Family
Lesson 5
Creation
Lesson 6
The Ark and the Flood
Lesson 7
The Great Family
Lesson 8
The Exodus
Lesson 9
The Ten Best Ways
Lesson 10
The Ark and the Tent
Lesson 11
The Ark and the Temple
Lesson 12
The Exile and Return
Lesson 13
The Prophets
Lesson 14
The Prophet Jonah
Appendix A: The Foundational Literature for Godly Play
Appendix B: The Spiral Curriculum for Godly Play
Introduction
Welcome to The Complete Guide to Godly Play, Volume 2 , Revised and Expanded. In this volume, we gather together the presentations that form a suggested cycle of lessons that could be used at the beginning of any program year, depending on when your year begins. Volume 1 of the series, How to Lead Godly Play Lessons , provides an in-depth overview of the process and methods of Godly Play. Another important resource that provides a detailed overview of this approach is Teaching Godly Play: How to Mentor the Spiritual Development of Children , by Jerome Berryman. Below, you will find quick reminder notes.
What Is Godly Play?
Godly Play is what Jerome Berryman calls his interpretation of Montessori religious education. It is an imaginative approach for working with children, an approach that supports, challenges, nourishes, and guides their spiritual quest. It is more akin to spiritual guidance than to what we generally think of as religious education.
Godly Play assumes that children have some experience of the mystery of the presence of God in their lives but that they lack the language, permission, and understanding to express and enjoy that in our culture. In Godly Play, we enter into Parables, Silence, Sacred Stories, and Liturgical Action in order to discover the depths of God, ourselves, one another, and the world around us.
In Godly Play, we prepare a special environment for children to work in with adult guides. Two adults (a storyteller and a doorperson) guide the session, making time for the children to do the following:
• Enter the space and be greeted.
• Get ready for the presentation (a story or lesson).
• Enter into a presentation based on a Parable, Sacred Story, or Liturgical Action.
• Respond to the presentation through shared wondering.
• Respond to the presentation (or other significant spiritual issues) with their own work, either expressive art or with the other materials on the shelves.
• Prepare and share a feast.
• Say goodbye and leave the space.
To help understand what Godly Play is, we can also take a look at what Godly Play is not. First, Godly Play is not a complete children’s program. Christmas pageants, vacation Bible school, children’s choirs, children’s and youth groups, parent-child retreats, picnics, service opportunities, week-day programs, and other components of a full and vibrant children’s ministry are all important and are not in competition with Godly Play. What Godly Play contributes to the glorious mix of activities is the heart of the matter, the art of knowing and knowing how to use the language of the Christian people to make meaning about life and death.
Godly Play is different from many other approaches to children’s work with Scripture. One popular approach is having fun with Scripture. That’s an approach we might find in many church school pageants, vacation Bible schools, or other such suggested children’s activities.
Having fun with Scripture is fine, but children also need deeply respectful experiences with Scripture if they are to fully enter into its power. If we leave out the heart of the matter, we risk trivializing the Christian way of life and will miss the profound satisfaction of existential discovery, a kind of “fun” that keeps us truly alive.
How Do You Do Godly Play?
When doing Godly Play, be patient. With time, your own style, informed by the practices of Godly Play, will emerge. Even if you use another curriculum for church school, you can begin to incorporate aspects of Godly Play into your practice—beginning with elements as simple as the greeting and goodbye.
Please pay careful attention to the environment you provide for children. The Godly Play environment is an open environment in the sense that children may make genuine choices regarding both the materials they use and the process by which they work. The Godly Play environment is a boundaried environment in the sense that children are protected and guided to make constructive choices.
As guides, we set nurturing boundaries for the Godly Play environment by managing time, space, and relationships in a clear and firm way. The setting needs such limits to be the kind of safe place in which a creative encounter with God can flourish. Let’s explore each of these ways to nurture in greater depth.
How to Manage Time
An Ideal Session
A full Godly Play session takes one to two hours and has four parts. These four parts echo the way most Christians organize their worship together.
Opening: Entering the Space and Building the Circle
The storyteller sits in the circle, waiting for the children to enter. The doorperson helps children and parents separate outside the room and helps the children slow down as they cross the threshold. The storyteller helps each child sit in a specific place in the circle and greets each child warmly by name.
The storyteller, by modeling and direct instruction, helps the children get ready for the day’s presentation.
Hearing the Word of God: Presentation and Response
The storyteller first invites a child to move the hand of the church “clock” wall hanging to the next block of color (see Lesson 1, The Circle of the Church Year , for a complete description of this). The storyteller then presents the day’s lesson. At the presentation’s end, the storyteller invites the children to wonder together about the lesson. The storyteller then goes around the circle asking each child to choose work for the day. If necessary, the doorperson helps children get out their work, either storytelling materials or art supplies. As the children work, some might remain with the storyteller who presents another lesson or story to them. This smaller group is made up of those who are not able to choose their own work yet.
Sharing the Feast: Preparing the Feast and Sharing It in Holy Leisure
The doorperson helps three children set out the feast—such as juice, water, fruit or cookies—for the children to share. Children take turns saying prayers, whether silently or aloud, until the storyteller says the last prayer. The children and storyteller share the feast, clean things up, and put the waste in the trash.
Dismissal: Saying Goodbye and Leaving the Space
The children get ready to say goodbye. The doorperson calls each child by name to say goodbye to the storyteller. The storyteller holds out his or her hands, letting the child make the decision to hug, hold hands, or not touch at all. The storyteller says goodbye and reflects on the pleasure of having the child in this community.
When you have a full hour to work with, the opening, presentation of the lesson, and wondering aloud together about the lesson might take about twenty minutes. The children’s response to the lesson through art, retelling, and other work might take about twenty-five minutes. Preparing the feast, sharing the feast, and saying goodbye might take another twenty minutes.
If You Only Have the Famous Forty-Five Minute Hour
You may have a limited time for your session—as little as forty-five minutes instead of two hours. With a forty-five-minute session, you have several choices.
Focus on the Feast
Sometimes, children take especially long to get ready. If you need a full fifteen minutes to build the circle, you can move directly to the feast, leaving time for a leisurely goodbye. You will not shortchange the children. The quality of time and relationships that the children experience within the space is the most important lesson presented in a Godly Play session.
Focus on the Word
Most often, you will have time for a single presentation, including time for the children and you to respond to the lesson by wondering together. Finish with the feast and then the goodbye ritual. Because the children have not had time to make a work response, we suggest that every three or four sessions, you omit any presentation and focus on the work instead (see the next section).
Focus on the Work
If you usually pass from the presentation directly to the feast, then every three or four sessions, substitute a work session for a presentation. First, build the circle. Then, without making a presentation, help children choose their work for the day. Allow enough time at the end of the session to share